


Thanksgiving

by Aja, earlgreytea68



Series: Hays Code Love Scene [6]
Category: Shenanigans (Original Universe)
Genre: Alcoholism, F/M, M/M, Podcast, Shenanigans (Original Universe) - Freeform, Thanksgiving, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 16:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11764341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja, https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: It’s a look that says he knows she’s having trouble with all of this.





	Thanksgiving

**Author's Note:**

> This is it, folks. Thank you for reading.

It takes a while for Jane to get it.

At first she’s just mainly trying to keep her own head above water at work, with only a bit of energy left over to attend to whether Elliot is spiraling out of control without her back home. But each time she jaunts back for a visit, the changes are sharper, more distinctive. It’s not just Elliot, of course—each return trip back is a reminder that the group is changing, growing apart, growing up, in ways subtle and blaring.

But Elliot is her home base; seeing him shift is disconcerting.

The first time she flies back after that surreal weekend in May, when Elliot had clutched at her and sobbed on her shoulder and she’d felt strangely older than she’d felt in a long time, she finds him in a flurry of typical Elliot activity. He has, he tells her eagerly, at last winnowed down his painstaking search for the perfect apartment to one of two choices. One is in the South End, and he describes it as though its immaculate perfection is what called to him, and not the fact that it’s near Jonah. The other is downtown, close to BU, and when she expresses surprise that he’d want to be so close to the touristy spots, he turns bright red and confesses that he’s going to start grad school. For _directing_.

Jane is so surprised she almost drops her cigarette, but after a moment, she doesn’t really understand her own reaction. It makes all the sense in the world, really: Elliot has tried for so many years to direct everything and everyone in his own life that it’s the most natural conclusion for him to try to get paid for it.

“What gave you the idea?” she asks, and he bites his lip.

“Um,” he says. “Jonah asked me why I hadn’t tried it.” He looks abashed. “And I didn’t have an answer for him. So I, you know, I thought about it, I guess. And it sounded pretty good.”  

He stammers so much whenever he talks about Jonah. Jane’s not used to seeing him so perpetually flustered, and she doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

“Well,” she says, instead of dwelling on it, “you should definitely get the apartment downtown. If you’re worried about how far away it is from Jonah, just make sure you get a big enough bed, and he’ll help you solve that problem.”

Elliot says, “ _Jane_ ,” in a horrified, secretly pleased voice, and honestly. _Honestly_ , he is the most transparent fool, Jane thinks, secretly pleased herself.

The two of them spend that weekend frantically measuring all the rooms in Elliot’s new apartment, sketching out layout possibilities, and then raiding IKEA. Elliot hugs her frequently, which is a new thing between them, now, apparently, but Jane’s not going to complain. He has a whole strange, giddy new relationship with his phone, however, which finally necessitates her placing her hand over his wrist and telling him, “Look, you don’t have to spend the whole weekend with me just because I’m here. You can go be with your boyfriend.”

Elliot gives her the strangest look, a mix of surprise and guilt and embarrassment and, just, sheepishness, she supposes. She’s not really even sure if that’s right—she’s not sure she’s ever _seen_ Elliot sheepish before.

“I _absolutely_ have to spend the whole weekend with you,” he says. “And _of course_ it’s just because you’re here. They’re called _Jane_ weekends, not Jane-and-other-people weekends.” She tries not to grin too openly. He thumbs his phone shut and puts it away, and then he fidgets like he doesn’t remember what his hands are for if they’re not texting Jonah, and then he, says, with a helpless little smile in his voice, “I just, I like him _so much_ ,” and then he puts a hand over his cheek like he’s Shirley Temple or something, and Jane is both charmed and baffled.

“I can honestly say I’ve never seen you like this before,” she says.

“I’ve never _been_ like this before,” he says, but before she can quite process this he shakes himself out of his... Jonah reverie, or whatever, and drags her off to make fun of all the pale imitation Arco lamps.

No one else really notices, but they’re not really in a position to. “Elliot seems different,” she comments to Caroline one afternoon over Skype. It’s mid-August;  Jane is sitting outside on her tiny balcony overlooking a freeway, and that’s Silicon Valley for you, but she’ll take it. Caroline is lying on Nicholas’s couch with Nicholas’s cat purring away on her lap. He occasionally keeps sniffing the webcam and making Jane smile.

“Different how?” Caroline strokes Ian Purrtis’s head and he bats at her affectionately.

“Giddier, mainly,” Jane says, though that’s a shorthand for something that’s harder to define. “I don’t know. Do you feel different now that you and Nicholas are dating?”

Caroline shrugs. “Nicholas is depressingly exactly the same. I haven’t even found a locked room or a second password-protected phone full of secrets.”

“Ugh, what a boring do-gooder,” Jane says. Caroline laughs.

“I’m pretty sure he shipped all his inner darkness off to Jonah,” she says.

“Eh,” Jane says. “If we’re talking about Elliot, it’s more like an inner greige.”

She doesn’t see Elliot and Jonah together until Thanksgiving. She’s taken the week off, and the Time Ravel crew has all made plans to do a giant Thanksgiving celebration together, the kind they haven’t done since college. They meet up at Blake’s parents’ house, who turn over their massive kitchen to all of them for a kind of pot luck carve-up, and it’s sweet and heartwarming and Jane wouldn’t miss it.

But it’s different, too; Caroline sits comfortably on Nicholas lap while throwing Elliot a constant string of banter as if she’s eager to keep things on par with where they were before, and Nicholas smiles and drinks his craft beer and mainly looks exhausted—which, given everything Caroline’s told Jane about what a nightmare the third year of med school is, isn’t too surprising. They seem contented and relaxed and cozy together, and she’s happy for them.

Elliot and Jonah, though, are harder for her to parse. Where before Elliot had seemed to her incessantly giddy, now he seems almost preternaturally calm. He sits rigid and alert, as though he’s doubly aware of where he is and who he’s with and, just, everything. It’s as though the casually oblivious boy she often loved in spite of himself has been replaced by an oddly more sober version who’s trying to actively pay attention and listen to everyone else. He’s quieter; he speaks less often, and less often first. It’s... striking. She needles him into a conversation about Radiohead just to watch his nose wrinkle like Old Elliot. Next to him, Jonah watches him rail against the mundanity of _OK Computer_ with a smile on his face that belies his complacency, and Jane waits for the moment when Elliot takes a turn for the obnoxious and Jonah has to gently rein him in or someone has to gently change the subject.

But it doesn’t come: Elliot remembers where he is and who he’s with, and he finishes his speech and then subsides, slipping his arm through Jonah’s and cuddling against him as though that’s his resting state after his wind-up clockwork motor has run down.

He also seems disinclined to leave Jonah’s side for a second; even when he’s wholly engrossed in a debate with Caroline and Blake about which would win in a cage match, kale or avocado, he sits on the couch with Jonah buttressed against his back and swivels towards her like he’s incapable of prying himself away from the place where their hips are connected.

Jonah acts like he notices none of this, but Jane isn’t fooled. He makes the politest small talk imaginable with her and Kate and Hazel, but his arm is lightly encircling Elliot’s waist the entire time, and Jane is pretty sure probably 80 percent of his attention is focused there, where Elliot’s fingertips occasionally skate over his forearm.

She thinks it might be a tether, that deceptively loose grip. She’s not sure if she likes the idea of Elliot being tethered. Which is silly, because she was the one who told Elliot that being with Jonah might be a good thing for both of them. And here they are, and they seem... good for one another. Completely taken with one another.

And it’s good; she knows, objectively, that it’s good for Elliot. He’s growing up, he’s pursuing goals, he’s living for something outside of himself, and she knows that it’s all fine, it’s how it’s supposed to be.

She’s just so not _used_ to it.

When it’s time to assemble in the kitchen to prepare food, they gather around the kitchen island, Nicholas and Caroline and Jane on one side slicing up fruit, Jonah and Elliot and Blake on the other slicing up vegetables. Their side of the island quickly masters an assembly line approach, but between Blake making non sequitur comments about fruit and Elliot attempting to artfully arrange all their piles of vegetable slices and Jonah teasing Elliot about the asymmetry of his piles, their side is woefully inefficient.

“If we were a team in _Cupcake Wars_ we would win all the cupcakes,” Caroline says. “And you guys would be cupcakeless.”

“Should someone tell her that _Cupcake Wars_ isn’t actually about winning all the cupcakes?” Jonah asks.

Caroline yanks the center out of an orange and stares at him. “Of course it’s about winning all the cupcakes. It’s a cupcake _war_ which implies a war over cupcakes.”

“She has a point,” says Blake.

“Can one of you guys stop having semantic arguments and come help me and Kate with the turkey?” Hazel calls from the dining room table. Nicholas dutifully goes, and Jane should probably help, too, but, let’s face it, these are her people.

“How is this a semantic argument?” Caroline asks, narrowing her eyes. “What even is it about if not a fight to the death over cupcakes?”

“I’d go to war if there were cupcakes,” Blake offers.

“You would be in the _trenches_ if there were cupcakes,” Caroline says. “That is beside the point.”

“Well,” says Jonah. “I think the object is to—”

“Shh,” Elliot says. “Let her think it’s about winning the cupcakes, it will give us a tactical advantage in the battles to come.”

“Says the person who’s just spent two minutes attempting to recreate the Eiffel Tower out of celery sticks.”

“I will totally stab you,” says Elliot.

“Of course,” says Jonah, not even trying to sound threatened. “Is this a carrot peeler I see before me?”

And Elliot laughs a helpless burble of laughter and looks up at him with such deep and complete adoration that Jane feels shamefully invasive just by standing there.

Jonah darts a glance at her, the smile still receding from his face. It’s a look that says he knows she’s having trouble with all of this, and it makes her feel even more voyeuristic and uncomfortable.

He finds her, later, after they’re all drowsy and full of turkey (and/or tofurkey) and eggnog (and/or soy milk eggnog).  Elliot is finally not clinging to Jonah; instead he’s off deep in conversation with Hazel, and that’s new, too—though they’re probably just talking about Jonah, the way Jonah and Jane are probably just going to talk about Elliot.

She sighs and sips her cranberry cocktail. Jonah says without preamble, “You’re not enjoying yourself.”

She laughs. “I’m happy to be here,” she says.

“You’re not happy about me and Elliot,” Jonah says. “I’d’ve hoped that you of all people would be.”

“It’s not that I’m not happy,” Jane says, remembering how she’d basically told Elliot to follow his heart and serve himself to Jonah on a platter six months earlier. “It’s not that.”

Jonah waits, and she remembers that this is a thing she likes about him; that he lets people have a chance to figure out what they’re trying to say.

“He’s so different,” she tries.

But that’s not quite right, and he knows it, because he only replies, “He is, and he isn’t,” and waits some more.

Eventually, she finds a way to voice the feeling she’s been carrying around all evening. “I feel like,” she tries, “the ceremony happened without me, and I didn’t get the chance to give anyone away.”

And, ugh, she hates being maudlin, but there it is; this feeling that Elliot, her best, dearest person, is no longer _hers_. And maybe he hasn’t even noticed because he’s too busy being happy about belonging to Jonah.

Because he is. Elliot is jubilantly, glowingly happy.

Jonah shoots her a look born of sympathy and possibly a touch of wariness. She suspects they probably feel similarly about each other, both of them so tangled up in their versions of Elliot, in their vastly different ways.

“You enjoy it out there,” he says. “In Mountain View.”

“Perfect weather and the beach is right there.” She sips her cocktail. He doesn’t ask about the job, but she knows his question isn’t really about that.

“I think,” Jonah says, consideringly, “you come back here so often because you want it to be a kind of respite—a complete break away and a reminder of why you’re out there to begin with. Only you want it to be frozen in time, the way you left it.”

“I don’t want—” Jane halts. “I know that’s not possible,” she says. “We all move on.”

“Elliot doesn’t think he’s moving on,” Jonah says. “He’s still as excited to see you as ever.”

She looks over at Elliot, who looks up at her and grins at them before returning to his conversation.

“He’s talked all month about having you back,” Jonah says. “He misses you dearly. And I think,” he adds, “that if you’re unsettled, maybe it’s a sign that you’re changing, too.”

Jane bites her lip. “Maybe,” she admits.

“That’s not a bad thing,” he says. “If it were, you wouldn’t have left.”

Jane remembers a bright sunny day in spring. “Nothing gold can stay,” she murmurs.

“Some things do,” Jonah says. He smiles. “I believe very much that the important things do.”

Jane thinks. “Well,” she says after a moment. “Look at us all. We’re all still here.”

“We have all been through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover,” says Jonah, and Jane doesn’t get that reference, but she laughs anyway.

“It’s kind of weird, though, right?” she says. “That we’re all still here. And friends.”

Jonah smiles. “Just between you and me, I was relieved to still know so many people when I came back. Although I think Blake might finally be ready to move out to Hollywood to pursue that stand-up career, so let us embrace this time while we have it.”

She laughs again. Elliot looks over at them again, and this time he hops up and flies across the room and drapes his arms around Jane’s neck. She pulls him down next to her on the couch and hugs him.

“I have to tell you,” he says. “About the gig we’re putting together for Caroline. It’s a surprise for her birthday.”

“Who is we?” she asks skeptically.

“Me and Nicholas and Blake—and you if you want,” says Elliot. He looks up at Jonah and his voice drops further. “And the high schoolers from the school Jonah taught at, but Jonah is pretending he doesn’t know anything about it so he can have plausible deniability later.”

“I can tell when you’re scheming around me,” Jonah says.

“It’s a very wholesome scheme, it totally won’t implicate you,” Elliot says.

“I can also tell when you’re lying.”

“I would never lie to you about shenanigans,” says Elliot, but he smiles, sharp as ever, and just like that he’s Jane’s Elliot once more.

“Are you giving her a Slip ‘N Slide?” she asks. “You know Caroline’s always wanted a Slip ‘N Slide.”

“No,” says Elliot. “Well. Maybe. Maybe we’ll do that next year. Blake would totally just rent a bunch of Slip ‘N Slides and have a giant lawn party.”

“You are totally not having a giant waterslide party without me,” says Jane. “I will make Caroline move her birthday if I have to.”

“Shh,” says Elliot. “Okay, here’s what. I still talk to the kids who did social media for _Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat_ , and they’re going to help us get the school marching band to do a flash mob of ‘Sweet Caroline.’ We’re going to lure her here and the whole band will be out on Blake’s lawn and Nicholas is going to serenade her like Ferris Bueller. It’s going to be the greatest.”

She stares at him. “Elliot, you are truly inspired.”

His cheeks turn pink. “You don’t even want to know how I got Nicholas to agree to sing.”

“Oh, I think I definitely want to know.”

“Let’s just say it involved a lot of scorpion bowls at the Hong Kong and some blackmail involving all the inside info I have about his bathroom habits.”

“I take it back, I absolutely do not want to know.”

He sits back and beams at her. “It’s going to be amazing.”

“If this is what you’re going to do for Caroline, what are you going to do for Jonah’s birthday?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Elliot says. “I’m going to get him ten thousand Twitter followers.”

“What?”

“Hello, social media guru,” says Elliot.

“I hope that’s not all you’re giving him,” says Jane.

“Pfft,” says Elliot dismissively. “Obviously, no, but, like. I can do that in my sleep. And the ten thousand followers is just the start. After that comes the part where we take over Boston theatre.”

“Take it over. Like Prohibition gangsters.”

“We’re going in guns blazing, see,” says Elliot in a terrible Prohibition gangster voice.

“We are not going in guns blazing,” says Jonah patiently from the opposite end of the couch. Elliot looks up.

“Hello, you,” he says, and slides around Jane to settle into Jonah’s lap.

“Hello,” says Jonah.

“I’m just saying, a little haze of bullets never hurt anyone,” Elliot tells him.

“And I’m just saying, once I send you in by yourself, you won’t need bullets.”

Jane can’t see Elliot’s face because he’s gazing into Jonah’s, but she can tell what’s on it. She smiles.

“Did you tell Jane?”

“About the eet-sway aroline-Cay?”

“No, about _you_.”

“Oh.” Elliot swings partly around, one arm still clinging to Jonah. “Guess who’s directing Tennessee Williams in spring?”

“What? Elliot!” Jane hugs him.

“It’s for a new company,” Elliot says. “They like experimental stuff.”

“So they’re doing Tennessee Williams?”

“No,” Elliot says, a wicked gleam entering his eye. “So they’re having _me_ direct Tennessee Williams. How do you feel about—” he pauses dramatically— “ _An Uber Named Desire_?”

Jane looks at Jonah. “What have you done?” she asks in mock horror.

“Picture it,” Elliot says. “Stanley Kowalski’s stricken Lyft driver, Facebook Live-ing him from the front seat while he shrieks ‘Stella!’ out the passenger window.”

“That’s... actually not the worst idea in the world, oh my god, I hate you.”

“Fortunately this theatre group appreciates a high level of meta-parody,” Elliot says. “I think it will work well with _Streetcar_. I’ve also been thinking about a reality TV version of _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_. Big Daddy is Robert Kardashian. Maggie the Cat is Blac Chyna. Think about it.”

Jane stares.

“You have no idea whether I’m trolling you or not, do you.”  Elliot grins.

“You know what?” Jane says, and suddenly she can’t stop grinning back. “That is no longer my job. It is now 100 percent Jonah’s job to tell whether your schemes are ironic or sincere, or if they have accidentally cycled around from being ironic to actually being sincere.”

“It’s totally still your job, too” Elliot says warmly. He tugs her hand into his lap. “Let’s get up early tomorrow and go to Union Square. They’ve still got those maple bacon donuts you pretend not to love.”

“Ugh,” says Jane. “Fine. But only because how you eat the bacon will give me insight into whether you’re being sincere or ironic.”

“I’ve just been assuming all his schemes are ironically sincere to save time,” says Jonah, reaching up and carding his fingers through Elliot’s hair. Elliot shifts and leans back against his shoulder, looking up at him.

“Not all of them,” he says softly, and Jonah looks at him and touches their foreheads together. It still makes Jane feel invasive, seeing Elliot be this intimate with another human being—but she probably should just get over herself. He looks blissed out and quietly content, and she’s just going to have to get used to that.

And he’s probably actually not kidding about getting Jonah those ten thousand followers. In fact, she realizes, this is just the beginning of his biggest scheme yet.

“Hey.” Nicholas is suddenly there beside the couch, sounding sleepy and relaxed. “We’re going to head out soon because I’m exhausted, but we’re on for Eggo brunch, yeah?”

Elliot yawns, which makes Nicholas yawn, which makes Jane yawn. “Can I bring Jane?”

Nicholas smiles at her. “You can always bring Jane.”

“Is this a BYOE thing?” Jane asks.

“Ha, no, I’ve been experimenting with my own waffle maker,” Nicholas says. “I’ve been making this organic vegan waffle mix that you can bake with nuts and—”

“Oh, god, no, not the waffle maker again,” says Caroline, coming up behind him and clamping a hand over his mouth. He grins beneath her hand. She mouths to Jane, _See? Boring!_  and that doesn’t fool Jane one bit.

“I’m totally going to bring my own waffle mix,” she says.

“Waffle mixers?” Now it’s Blake, wandering in with a massive leg of turkey in his hand. “You know what I was thinking would be cool for the next weekly-monthly party? Waffle art.”

Everyone groans.

“No more parties, I’m exhausted,” says Kate, and Jane has no idea where she came from or how long she’s been standing there.

“You have all been busy with the podcast,” Caroline says. “Has Hazel decided on a third season yet?”

“About that,” Elliot says, hopping off Jonah’s lap. “Hazel,” he calls into somewhere. “Is it ready?”

“Almost,” Hazel calls from somewhere. “Aww, fuck it, fine, sure, it’s ready.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, right this way,” says Elliot, and he ushers them all into Blake’s parents’ drawing room—at least Jane thinks that’s what rooms like these that are too fancy to be the living room are called—where Hazel has set up her laptop with a random projector aimed at the wall.

“Oh, cool, I forgot I had that,” says Blake through a mouthful of turkey.

“It’s your dad’s, not yours,” Hazel says, amused.

“Ehh,” says Blake, or at least Jane thinks that’s what it is, muffled.

“Okay,” says Hazel. “Gather round, folks. This is what I call the Time Ravel Christmas Special No One Knew They Needed.”

She turns on her laptop and pulls up a Prezi.

“Is that a Prezi?” says Jonah.

“Isn’t it magnificent,” says Elliot.

“Oh, no,” says Caroline.

“This,” Hazel says with a flourish, “is a collection of storyboards Elliot and I have put together for the next and final episode of the Falconry subseries of _Time Ravel_.”

She flips through the Prezi, revealing a series of haunting and increasingly dark sketches of what looks like Sebastian having to go on a quest to rescue the Mysterious Man. At the end, after locking the Mysterious Man in a passionate embrace, he flings himself onto a runaway dirigible just in time to divert its course to keep it from slamming into New Antarctica and destroying everything for miles in all directions. She storyboards through a sketch of Sebastian steering the balloon into the side of a mountain. Another click, and the balloon explodes with Sebastian in it.

She clicks to a final slide that contains a giant question mark, then turns to their blank faces, beaming.

“Surprise!” she says.

She and Elliot look delighted with themselves.

“You’re killing off Sebastian?” Nicholas asks.

“Yes!” Elliot says emphatically.

There’s a moment where Jane looks at Nicholas, prepared to be sad on his behalf, but instead he takes a deep breath and says, “Oh, thank _god_ , I’ve been so exhausted,” and slumps against Caroline.

Elliot smiles and says, “Yeah, I noticed. This will wrap up his storyline and make everyone cry and it’ll be magnificent. The Mysterious Man will be heartbroken but he’ll go on without him.”

“Albeit _most_ unwillingly,” Jonah says lightly.

“So we’ll drop this bombshell at Christmas, and then I thought, for New Year’s, we might announce an anthology format for the next sub-series,” Hazel says. “I’ve talked to the network and they’re 100 percent in favor of it, so—” she takes an excited breath. “I’m just going to go for it.”

“That’s _amazing_ ,” Jane says, and they all spontaneously break into applause. Hazel looks at Elliot and then gives him a hug, and Jane suddenly feels stupidly proud of him. Of all of them.

“You know what,” she says, “You should all come with us to Union Square tomorrow morning to celebrate Sebastian’s impending demise.”

“And Hazel’s impending ascension to podcast fame,” says Caroline.

“And Jonah’s impending ascension to Twitter theatre celebrity,” grins Elliot.

“And Elliot’s acclaimed directorial turn with _An Uber Named Desire_ ,” says Jane.

“And Nicholas actually having a shot at surviving med school,” says Nicholas.

“And Caroline’s art show,” says Jonah. She drops him a dainty curtsy.

“And Blake’s impending move to Hollywood,” says Blake. They all look at him. “What? I’m totally gonna do it.”

“You’re going to be amazing,” says Kate supportively, and he offers her a bite of his turkey leg in thanks.

“And Jane’s promotion,” Elliot says. They all turn and gawk at her. She ducks behind Caroline, embarrassed.

“You weren’t going to tell us!” Caroline gasps, flinging her arms dramatically around Jane in her Caroline way.

“She got promoted to Senior Software Engineer, the show-off,” Elliot says, coming over and mussing her hair.

“Ugh, you suck, I’m so proud of you,” Caroline says, and Jane is enveloped.

“When did we all start _hugging_ this much?” she complains, but not too loudly.

“What about you, Kate?” Jonah asks. “What are we celebrating for you?”

“I marathoned all of _Black Sails_ in four days,” Kate says promptly.

“Fantastic,” Jonah says. “I’m going to drink to that.”

“And I’m going to go home and prepare for Sebastian’s imminent demise,” says Nicholas. He shuffles over to the Elliot-Jane-Caroline hug pile and says, “Hey,” to Elliot with one of his soft smiles. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Elliot says, and Jane is definitely starting to recognize when he looks sheepish now. “You know I’ve been wanting to kill off Emerson James ever since I created him.”

“Well, very nicely done, Dr. Frankenstein,” says Nicholas. He ruffles Elliot’s hair and then pulls Caroline toward the door.

“We’ll see you in the morning!” she calls as he tugs her away.

They put the projector away and help Blake clean up and wash dishes and put away plates and linens and silverware, and then they all thank Blake’s parents about a hundred times and scatter out into the crisp November air to await their cars. Kate and Hazel’s car comes first, and then it’s just the three of them standing together on the wide elegant lawn, huddling in their coats and looking up at the stars.

Elliot moves into Jonah’s arms and stays there, leaning into him while Jonah holds him close. Jane watches the two of them, the united contented stillness they seem to achieve at no other time except when they’re like this. She thinks about all the waiting Jonah did to wind up here, and about the way things change across time and space; about the way change can sometimes bring you closer together, not further apart.

“What are you two doing for Christmas?” she asks.

“We hadn’t...” Elliot looks up at Jonah. “What are we doing?”

Jonah sends Jane a smile. “I think Jane might have some ideas for us.”

“You should come visit me,” Jane says. “Out where the orange and palm trees sway.”

“Really?” Elliot squeaks.

“Sure, I’ve got a spare bedroom,” she shrugs. “Might as well let the two of you break it in for me.”

“It will be nice to get away from it all while Sebastian dies a tragic death,” Elliot says.

“I will bar your access to social media and make you go Christmas shopping with me,” Jane says.

“Yes, please,” says Jonah.

“Will there be malls?” Elliot says with wide eyes.

Jane laughs. “So many malls,” she says. “Strip malls, shopping malls, outlet malls. You will think you’re trapped in a Romero trilogy.”

“Yesssss,” says Elliot. “That’s the Jane experience I’ve been missing.”

She laughs and lights a cigarette just as the next car pulls up. It’s theirs, and she watches Elliot slip his hand into Jonah’s as they move towards it.

“See you in the morning,” she calls after him just as he’s about to slip inside.

He sends her a thumbs up. “Bright and early, maple bacon with your name on it,” he says, and somehow she knows that something about his face in the moment—the happy innocence of it, his cheeks flushed from the cold night air, his hand still tucked into Jonah’s—is going to stay with her forever afterwards; that it will be a tiny repeating skip in her record, a snapshot of the podcast and Boston and all of them before they gradually do move on and part, as she knows one day they all probably will.

Maybe she’s wrong, and Jonah’s right; maybe it’s just the small things that change. Maybe, she thinks with a private smile, as time goes by, the fundamental things really do apply.

She takes a drag on her cigarette, the embers coal-red in the dark.

“Hey,” she calls. Elliot turns.

“Stay gold, ponyboy,” she says, and Elliot’s smile deepens into that sharp brilliant recognition she loves about him. She realizes suddenly that the connection she’d read between him and Jonah earlier wasn’t really a tether at all, but a link that can only expand and grow; it’s a way of keeping Elliot, her Elliot, the one true Elliot, grounded to something real and safe and permanent as he soars and soars and soars.

“You know the rules, no jazz before the rumble,” he shoots back, and with that they’re gone, and Jane is alone with her cigarette and herself, and for no real reason she’s laughing out loud, watching her breath mingle with the smoke in the cold night air.

It’s the perfect wintery aesthetic, she thinks, and maybe that’s her own kite string, her own grounding tie—the balance of intentional beauty with a splash of spontaneity. That is, after all, what drew her to Elliot in the first place, all those years ago when they first met. That’s what drew her to Boston to begin with—its order and composition, its unexpected grace.

Her car pulls up and she stubs out the cigarette with her toe, watching the embers fade into the wet grass. “Where to?” the driver asks when she slides in.

Jane breathes in.

“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “It’s all home.”


End file.
